AIG Spa Endulgence

So, I awake this morning to the radio just like any other morning. As I lay there waking up and listening to the radio I think I hear the radio personalities talking about AIG personnel going to a resort and spending many of the tax payer dollars they received in the bailout. I think to myself no.... So when I get up and get the kids off to school I do a little research and this is what I find.

No more than a week after we, the taxpayers, bail out AIG in an attempt to stabilize the weakening economy (more on that later), AIG sends 70 of its "top performers" to a swanky resort where the seventy people rack up more than $440,000 in seven days. They spend about $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and, as if that were not enough, they spend $23,000 on spa treatments. That works out to be about $6300 per person and all paid for by us!

Furthermore, the CEO, who let the Company get into such dire straights, is taking a $5 million bonus and the man who was in charge of the troubled division that weighted AIG down is on a $1 million per month retainer. This is all after astronomic bonuses were paid last year after AIG announced a multi BILLION dollar loss. After the announcement, the CEO conned the board of directors into overlooking the loss for purposes of paying bonuses and all the executives received MILLIONS of dollars in bonuses. Of course, the company line is that the officers knew nothing about the impending demise of the company but PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit works proves otherwise.

Needlesstosay, I am livid that I am working hard to pay taxes that are funding windfalls to those who run public companies into the ground. Would we not all be better off to let these ginormous companies fail and let the executives take their due lumps? I'm not really suggesting that that would be good for the economy (such as it is) but don't you think that we as taxpayers should have some say or that any money given by the government to bail out these companies should be given with so many strings attached that these ludicrous deals cannot and would not happen? I think the executive behaviour was criminal to run the company into the ground but then to turn around in laugh in the taxpayers face, now that is felonious! I hope they all go to jail!

Now I'll get off my soapbox and in closing I'll say that I always thought I wanted to be a weather person because they made good money for being wrong most of the time. However, if these guys don't go to jail then I am changing my mind...